Diversity Conference
September 22-24, 2009
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Diversity in the 21st Century: Talking About Diversity
Keynote Speaker: Helen Zia
Monfort Professor in Residence
Diversity, Evil, and other Tipping Points in the Age of Obama
As this nation rapidly moves toward a "minority majority" and emergent groups move out of invisibility in our workplaces, communities and even the White House, can we re-envision the new face of America in these contemporary times that have been labeled "post-Civil Rights,"? “post-racism,”? and "post-feminist"? Writer and activist Helen Zia, the daughter of immigrants from China, shares her personal observations and stories to explore these dynamic times and how each of us can challenge old beliefs in order to bring together diverse communities of race, gender, sexual orientation and other "divides" for social justice and our common humanity.
Tuesday, September 22, 7:00 p.m.
Main Ballroom, Lory Student Center
Helen Zia is an American journalist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades.
Helen Zia was born in New Jersey to first generation immigrants from Shanghai. She entered Princeton University in the early 1970s and was a member of its first graduating class of women. As a student, Zia was among the founders of the Asian American Students Association. She was also a vocal anti-war activist, voicing her Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and a firm believer in feminism.
She entered medical school in 1974, but quit in 1976. She moved to Detroit, Michigan. She went to work as a construction laborer, an autoworker and a community organizer, after which she discovered her life’s work as a journalist and writer.
She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. President of the United States Bill Clinton quoted from Asian American Dreams at two separate speeches in the White House Rose Garden.
She is also co-author, with Wen Ho Lee, of My Country Versus Me, which reveals what happened to the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of being a spy for the People's Republic of China in the “worst case since the Rosenbergs.”
Zia is former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine. Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, books and anthologies. She was named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the decade by A. Magazine.
Zia has received numerous journalism awards for her ground-breaking stories; her investigation of date rape at the University of Michigan led to campus demonstrations and an overhaul of its policies, while her research on women who join neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations provoked new thinking on the relationship between race and gender violence in hate crimes.
Diversity Conference 2009 Session Schedule
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